Randoms, and the joys of stress baking

Please observe the super healthy breakfast I made for myself and Ben on Saturday...and yes, we demolished half of the pan by ourselves in under an hour. It's cool, you don't have to tell me how awesome and impressive we are. We know.

APPLE CRISP! Favorite of fall baking

On Sunday, my mom came over after church/choir and helped us rake leaves in the backyard. There were a LOT of leaves...like, a whole lot. The maple tree on our neighbor's property (the same tree that is infested with carptenter ants that like to invade our attic) drops most of its leaves into our backyard every fall, and we rake and dispose of them. Delightful.

Ben and my mom, hard at work. Don't worry, I was helping too :)

The fruits of our labor

This has been a rough week at work. I don't really want to get into it (also, can't really get into it, nondisclosure and legality blah blah blah) but Monday and Tuesday were especially stressful. Luckily, Monday is was saved by some quiet reading time and an amazing yoga class. Most Mondays I head to my favorite coffee shop and relax with a book and a beverage (this time, mint tea) and then head to my favorite yoga class at 7. Currently I'm reading this book which is fascinating and also terrifying...I'm only about 1/4 of the way through but so far I highly recommend it.

Class was PERFECT and exactly what I needed. I do love to push and challenge myself in my yoga practice, "do the thing that scares you" and whatnot. But there is a time and a place for that, and there is a time and a place for...not that. There are poses that actually do make me feel fear, and I will pretty much only ever do them if forced (visvamitrasana, he full form of vasistasana with the leg up, and upavistha konasana), and also poses that are not scary but are definitely confrontational (urdhva dhanurasana, dhanurasana, pinca mayurasana...so basically backbends) and these are great and beneficial poses. But some days I'm like crap, this entire day has been confrontational; can I just do some hip openers and stretch my hammies and do my favorite arm balances? And on Monday the answer was YES. For the record, this is my favorite pose.

Tea + Book + Yoga = happy times

At some point during the day on Tuesday I consumed five mini Milky Ways in a fit of blind rage and sent Ben some very violent and probably concerning text messages about punching people in the throat. Luckily, I did not punch anyone and instead channelled all of my stress into a batch of ghost cookies which I then decorated with pink sparkles because why not. And I ate them while watching Sleepy Hollow and New Girl, so I immediately felt one billion times better about life.

The products of my rage

Today I worked from home (again! yay!) because I had a coffee meeting in the morning near my house. Since you've all now seen what I look like on a workday when I can't be bothered to put on real people clothes, I figure you're all dying to know what I look like on a normal day at the office. Ta da:

Blazer and Tshirt from H&M
Pants from J Crew
Shoes from Target
And no I'm not wearing socks, my ankles are actually that white
.....

If you're wondering what the heck is that thing in the bottom right hand corner of the above photo, the answer is obviously, a bust of William Shakespeare wearing my blue wig from Halloween. Duh.

Working from home is about 80% less stressful than being in the office sometimes. I get just as much done if not more, but it just feels easier to keep everything in perspective and remember what is really important in life. I think that right now, I need the occasional WFH day for my sanity, and because I have trouble keeping frustration and disbelief from showing in my facial expressions WFH days also keep my eyeballs from freezing permanently into this position:

This is the face I make after 1 hour calls with IT

Now is not the time, Kato!

Anyone ever seen the original Pink Panther movies? If not, you definitely should - they are so much better than the new Steve Martin versions. Peter Sellers is a genius. But I digress.

If you have seen them, and you do know what I'm talking about, my first childhood exposure to Pink Panther was my dad yelling "Now is not the time, Kato! Now is not the time!!" when my sister would leap at out of some dark corner to pummel him, giggling uncontrollably. She was probably 3 or 4, I was probably 9 or so. This happened frequently and often resulted in bruises. My sister is fierce.

Why do I bring this up now, you ask? This is why:



If there ever was a modern-day, feline version of Kato it would be my parents cat Maggie, who is staying with us for 10 days while my parents are out of town.

Maggie is the master of stealth - except when she's purring. I'm also pretty sure she has no idea what species she is. She might think she's a human, or possibly a dog, but she definitely does not realize she's a cat.

Some other notable traits:
- if she goes for more than about 20 minutes without human company, she goes completely bananas.
- she insists on sitting in a chair during dinner.
- If you are sleeping, she will find you. And she will either a) drool in your ear while purring loudly, b) knead you forcefully with her paws, alsow while purring loudly, or c) sit on the nightstand next to your face, staring at you.
- Maggie enjoys beer.

But it is great having her around. She's a total weirdo and I love her to death.

In other news, today is day 5 of my Yoga Journal Fall Detox - only 2 days to go! It has definitely been an interesting journey and I'll share my opinion of the whole experience after it's done. Here's the short version of days 1-4:

Day 1: Started out not feeling so awesome, but figured it was due to a late night on Friday at First Ave with Caroline Smith and the Good Night Sleeps. I stuck (mostly) to the plan even through my 10 year high school reunion where I was tempted by lots of drinks and apps.


Caroline Smith and the Good Night Sleeps at First Ave

Day 2: Felt a little better than day 1 but still not awesome, and attributed it to continued lack of sleep and also cutting out caffeine. I went to an intense 2-hour yoga practice at The Om Collective with Ali and ran some errands but started feeling pretty exhausted around 5pm, so we stayed in instead of going to a movie like we'd planned.

Day 3: Day 3 was miserable. I woke up with a pounding headache and wanted coffee more than anything in the world but I forced myself to drink green tea instead and tried to get through the 26-minute day 4 yoga sequence. The headache continued all day, rendering me essentially useless at work. I tried to stick to activities that required almost no creative brain capcacity like organizing files and cleaning out my e-mail inbox, but meetings were still a lot of "Sorry could you repeat that?" and "Sure, no problem" having no idea what I had just agreed to. The headache just kept getting worse and even the thought of Kitchiri made me want to vomit so I skipped eating dinner, popped a Tylenol PM for the headache (probably against detox rules...) and went to bed at 8:30.

Day 4: I woke up feeling like a different person. The headache was gone and I didn't feel any strong craving for coffee, so I finally switched from green tea to herbal. I felt a little tired around 4 like usual, but nothing like day 3. And I finally made peace with Kitchiri. Not sure how it happened since I had been feeling such a strong aversion to it but last night I looked at my bowl and thought "you know what Kitchiri, you're not so bad." Kitchiri now feel like my partner - my detox buddy. I'll let you know on day 7 though...haha.